[Board] OSGeo Sponsorship and Conference Sponsorship

[christopher.schmidt at nokia.com]

Hi,

Currently, making an argument to sponsor FOSS4G is an easy sell:  
organizations which sponsor are given booth space, logo + marketing  
opportunities, and significant recognition throughout the (well- 
attended) conference.

It is my belief that currently, OSGeo sponsorship is a harder sell,  
especially to organizations which are not currently active in the Open  
Source geospatial world.

As a form of enticing organizations to sponsor the organization as  
well as the conference, it seems to me like it might make sense to  
offer a discount on conference sponsorships to organizations which  
sponsor the organization. This provides an additional, quite tangible  
benefit to anyone that sponsors OSGeo: the ability to receive a  
discount on potential conference sponsorship.

One potential way to go about this, which seems reasonably fair, and  
unlikely to significantly negatively impact the bottom line of either  
the conference or the organization, is to arrange for organization  
sponsors to receive a 10% discount as a Principal Sponsor, and a 20%  
discount as a Sustaining Sponsor. This sponsorship discount would not  
be cumulative with any other potential discounts, like the 15%  
discount offered for 2010 sponsorship to organizations which  
registered as sponsors before the end of 2009.

The end result of this, given the current FOSS4G sponsorship rates is  
that at the maximum sponsorship level of FOSS4G ($55k USD) would be  
offered an $11000 discount on this sponsorship, which could be paid to  
the LOC as part of the operation of the conference. If this were the  
case, the effective sponsorship funding to the combination of the  
organization and the conference would go from $105k to $95k. (Since  
the funding for the conference is from OSGeo, any 'loss' from the  
organization to the conference is really just a transfer, regardless  
of the technical/financial concept behind it, in my estimation.) A  
Principal sponsor would have a similar relative change in incoming cash.

I don't know for sure if this would be enticing to many organizations,  
but it seems like it would be an obvious, tangible benefit to offer to  
principal sponsors of OSGeo even if they aren't actively participating  
in the community; anyone who is considering sponsoring an event at a  
large scale anyway might well 'step up' their sponsorship a level if  
the total opportunity cost was lower.

Does anyone else have any opinions on this type of additional benefit  
to higher level sponsors of OSGeo?

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
Nokia